Memoirs of an Ice King
by hyourin10
Summary: Years after his forced assumption of kingship, a lonely Hitsugaya Toushirou decides to commit his memories in written form. That is, until he finds just the right person to hear him recount them verbally…
1. Impetus

Disclaimer: I don't own BLEACH, though I obviously like to mess around with its plot.  
Warning: Story may contain spoilers from latest manga chapters, anime episodes, and movie releases.

xxx

**Chapter 1 – Impetus**

Everything seems to start with that field of ice.

And that is, indeed, as far as I would tell those that are close enough to me at Soul Society. And I am not referring to Yamamoto-soutaichou either, though he is now technically my closest advisor. No, despite this current… predicament of mine, he will never replace Matsumoto.

Maybe it is just an old habit that I could never quite get rid of, but something always seem to hold my tongue when I attempt to share the more personal details of my life. Hyourinmaru knew every single last one of these, of course. But he would never sell me out.

Not even to Soujirou. Even before our duel, I think I already suspected strongly of a victory on some subconscious level. After all, my psychic bond with the zanpakuto spirit is stronger than any shinigami could ever hope for. Indeed, it goes all the way back to my death on that unnatural tundra. I would have become a shinigami far sooner had I not spitefully turned a deaf ear to the ice dragon's insistent calls. And I will probably always feel the guilt of that knowledge.

A meteorologist was what I was back then. Funny, is it not, how I turned out to be the one to dictate the weather rather than someone who observes or predicts them? And no, I did not come from the same dimension as most residents of the Soul Society. (And no matter how silly an assumption they have made of my background, I do not think I can ever bring myself to call them my _subjects_.) Maybe the original royal family also came from the "real" world… I can neither confirm nor disprove that hypothesis now, but it seems rather likely given my recent discovery through the archived documents that they had left behind.

Going back to the tundra… How did I end up there in the first place? Hmm, I think my team was dispatched to research the possible source of a new trend in global temperature. You have to understand that it was suppose to be a big thing. My home world had been suffering from what they called a "Greenhouse Effect", and a sudden 180-degree reversal towards the Ice Ages was rather unusual.

At least, the department head funding us was very excited. He went as far as boasting a possible solution to all future instances of global warming, if we could just get to the bottom of this peculiar phenomenon. I was understandably sceptical, but I kept my mouth shut for fear of losing those substantial subsidizations. I might have been a bachelor with little wants, but I had a mother in long-term intensive care that could definitely use the extra money to pay off some hefty bills.

While in the Rukongai, I often wondered what might have happened if I had refused the so-called "special one-time offer". By the time that I became a full-fledged captain, though, I was mostly able to fend off the useless "what-ifs". But now that I am left with nothing better to do than reminiscing and writing about the past, I have found it popping up more than I like to admit.

For instance, I cannot help but wonder if I would still have to spend a millennium just to track down my one-time mother. Or if I still have to rely on my guards to simply check up on her.

xxx

"Hitsugaya, where do you think you're going?"

Making no attempt to hide my sigh, I turned around to face the speaker. It was another little-known researcher that our boss dug up from somewhere. Dr. Something Something Easton. "Outside. We're not any closer to getting the results if we just stay inside this camp."

"Pah, sure we will. You're just a pessimist," Easton squinted distastefully at my standard outfit, complete with what little equipment light enough for me to carry by myself. "That's all you've got with you, kid? You might as well stay in and look over the charts again."

I could feel my eyebrows twitching as they furrowed into a frown, I tried to ignore his slur on my age. I am not a kid… just have a short stature. There was only so much you could do against genetics. "Fine, I just want to take a walk… alright? I don't like being cramped up for so long."

The man did not seem convinced. Why was him making so much of a fuss now? He never cared about my comings and goings before. "And you're going by yourself? You'd lose your way out there in no time. Every inch of this place looks the same."

That was a severe exaggeration, both of us knew it. I scowled heavily this time, but went along with what he said just to get his strange newfound interest off my back, "I'm not stupid. Checking our camp perimeter is all I'm going to do."

"Hey relax, kid," Easton waved his arms condescendingly in what was probably supposed to be a placating manner, "You're so uptight."

I thought I finally placed the look in his eyes then. Alright, so we failed to grab a female member onto our team… and some among us had been away from his wife or girlfriend for a long time… But honestly, I did not swing that way. Maybe I should have disposed of those manga books that my mother always insisted on stuffing into my luggage. I would not mind it if she decided to buy me some copies of the Shonen Jump, but esoteric magazines like Chara or CIEL… and she asked why my father listed her dubious hobbies as one of the reasons for their divorce.

Respecting gay people was well and good. Reading comics focused on them was also still alright. But getting so obsessed on my mother's level… You had to wonder if she would not actually push along the kind of things that she saw depicted within them.

Shutting the sealed door resolutely behind me, I decided not to bother with appearances by giving Easton an answer this time. I simply could not understand why the annoying man wouldn't want to get out of here as soon as he can, if he was so unmotivated to do fieldwork. Didn't he always complain about the lack of communication with his family? Well, finish the job and go home!

Speaking of this lack of enthusiasm, the rest of our merry band were not much better either. It was… almost as if they all wanted to drag this project out as long as they could. Really, there were better ways of earning more money. Ruining your reputation in favour of short-term gains financially was hardly the best way.

If it were up to me, I would have called off this expedition already. There was nothing noteworthy from the data we've gathered so far. This is just another new tundra created outside the sub-Arctic belt. The layer of frozen topsoil around this season was a bit thicker than recent records, but you could say the same thing for pretty much any other location on this planet right now. Being _the_ coldest place on Earth despite its latitude was probably the only thing still keeping us here at the moment.

In my frustration, I probably trekked further than I should have. At least, I was too far from the camp for anyone to help me out when _it_ happened.

"_Come_," the word boomed right next to my left ear and almost had me jumping in fright.

As I tried to calm my… dare I admit… fluttering heartbeat, I let out a few choice words in my mother tongue before gritting out a more proper reply, "Easton, just leave me alone…"

Wait, but that could not be him that I was hearing!

I felt my eyes widen involuntarily as realization dawned on me. Gods, had I stayed in this forsaken corner of Earth for so long that I could not distinguish Japanese from English? Easton was a borderline racist and I doubted he would speak a non-"Western" language, even if his brain cells could handle it. And yet, why did the voice sound so like him?

"_Or, perhaps you prefer this?_" there came that resounding voice again… or so I thought. For it sounded completely different this time. If not for the thunderous volume, I would have thought it was my bedridden mother speaking to me after she just saw me doing something stupidly funny. Like accidentally kissing a guy or something.

"Prefer what?" I whirled my head about as I scanned the surroundings in utter confusion. The voice sounded like its source was right next to me, but there was no one as far as my eyes could see. And I apparently still had 20/20 vision when I went for a regular examination at the hospital two months ago. "Who are you?"

Figures, just when I _did_ want to speak with the voice, it stopped answering me. I could still hear something echoing vary far off in the distance, but it was clearly unintelligible.

Modifying my question slightly, I tried to call out into the brisk air again. "Where are you?"

Something crackled loudly behind me in reply. Engulfing me… Crushing me…

The forbidding pressure made it suddenly difficult to breath, forcing me to hold back a string of aggravated curses. I swivelled on my heels with some headstrong efforts, only to find an empty plain still greeting my sight.

Some deciduous trees used to grow in the region around our camp, but now they only possess sharp bare branches that glittered ominously under the oddly bright overcast sky. Most of them had been cut down as firewood during our extended stay, but a few still remained to break the all-encompassing emptiness.

For miles without end, I could only see a field of sparkling frost… silvery ice… or whatever those poets would call it in their imaginative and flowery description. Strangely, I was not cold. Even in the few places where I knew my insulated coat had loose seams, my body temperature was left unperturbed.

I thought I could _feel_ something. The air around me certainly felt heavy and leaden, like how it would have been before a tropical rainstorm… except, of course, it no longer just rained in this place. When there was actually any precipitation at all, it was often snow and a lot of it. Dry and crisp… unless the snowflakes made contact with your bare skin and melt into freezing bites.

Maybe whoever spoke was invisible.

"And maybe Mom had the right idea too, when she said I don't go to the shrines often enough," I muttered surreptitiously under my breath, more to myself just for working out the tension that had somehow crept into my cheek muscles. It was more than just bad vibes that I was getting. My instincts were screaming at me to run, even though I could see no obvious danger to me.

Turning in the direction of our camp, I had to forcibly stop myself from outright running. With as much dignity as I could muster, I carefully placed one feet before the other in a controlled pace. "I am not superstitious. I am a good person. I am not superstitious. I am a good person…"

Perhaps I should have been superstitious, because something hit my head _hard_ when I repeated myself exactly four times.

Last thing I did before I lost consciousness, I swore I'd write and leave an _ema_ at a shrine next time before I go on an expedition—and not just on New Year's Day or my mother's birthday. I could use a better luck in the future.

xxx

A/N: Please let me know how you think of this idea. An incentive for…um, like continuing it?


	2. Lotus

Disclaimer: I don't own BLEACH, though I obviously like to mess around with its plot.  
Clarification: Story tends to change POV between future-Hitsugaya and past-Hitsugaya.

xxx

**Chapter 2 – Lotus**

Unsurprisingly, my human life left very little mark on me. Not when it only lasted twenty or odd years, as opposed to the century that I spent as a resident of the Rukongai. My exceptional knowledge of weather phenomena was probably the only useful thing that I can take away from that short existence.

That and Hyourinmaru.

I wish I could say my zanpakkuto spirit and I hit it off straight from the start. But in truth, I did not even know that I had already made a contact with him. And by the time I came to that realization, I had also worked out the true cause of my death. It was a miracle that I bothered to heed the calls of my "murderer" at all. But …what can you do about a creature of elements that acted on pure instinct?

In a way, Hyourinmaru reflects the shinigami aspect of me that was created at the moment of my death. However, it hardly defined me at the beginning.

Believe it or not, I was just another stray soul wandering on the outermost districts of Rukongai.

Since the creation of Soul Society, those parts have been forsaken by the authorities at Seireitei. Just a step away from Hueco Mundo, but hardly infested with enough hollows to raise interest from the shinigami patrols. None of them want to be there in the first place, anyway. Not even those who came from the very same place.

I did try to initiate some reformative measures after the Central 46 Chambers got the _bright_ idea of forcing me into this position, but I have no guarantee that the new programs are being implemented. Being isolated to a dimension of your own can be exceedingly frustrating at times.

There is simply no freedom. Oh, there is more than enough room for Hyourinmaru and I to soar, but we cannot venture anywhere outside this sealed pocket of space.

"_Your full powers are still untamed, Your Majesty_," they tried to tell me_. "You must allow them to settle and stabilise_," Right. And let us not forget they also want time to figure out a way to counter my ever-expanding arsenal of developed techniques. I think they have yet to realize that you cannot put a stop to creativity. Especially not when you give the person in question nothing else to do _but_ think up new ideas…

I can respect them for wanting to check my power. After all, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And I know that I am far from infallible to begin with. Nonetheless, it is annoying to be confined in one place.

As for Rukongai… Not to sound cliché, but it can be the best of places… and also the worst of places.

Many of my past associates came from its worst parts. Any districts above the numbering 70 are chaotic ghettos completely devoid of order—or hopefully, were. Zaraki and Kusajishi come immediately to mind when I think about the peculiar brand of death gods that seem to come from those places, although those two hailed from the northern parts of Rukongai. I, on the other hand, landed in…

xxx

"West Rukongai, Eightieth District, Chirirenge."

I blinked at the bored declaration as something prompted me to roll towards my left. The _why_ became obvious when a _kama_ blade sunk right into the marshy ground where I had been at just a moment before.

"Not bad for a new kid," the unkempt woman crouched down before my new position and sneered… or so I thought. It was rather hard to tell her exact expression from a face caked with streaks of thick sludge. "Welcome, then. Make sure you live through the day."

She promptly left me in the mud.

Eyes widened, I realized that there were others surrounding me. Between reed stalks taller than my own body, their eyes glowed in the darkening dusk like some kind of predatory animals. Judging from their minimalist clothing and weary appearances, their mentality was probably not much above than that.

I spared a quick glance at the sickle that hag had left behind. Was it intentional? The amusement that was in her eyes was not something that could be hidden by sludge.

The blade was worn and dinted, but its edge looked sharp enough.

Without warning, the air to my right shifted. I only had time to grab hold of the sickle when the kicks came. Someone pushed me into a shallow pool of muddy waters, others ripped my clothes off. I was faintly surprised to see it was some kind of plain _yukata_ that I never recalled putting on. I struggled desperately against the strong hold that those animals had on me, getting frantic when I saw some knives being drawn.

My mind chose to recognize the word "Rukongai" at that moment.

"Fuck," I swung the sickle with as much freedom as I had at the moment, feeling …rather than seeing… it sliced through flesh.

"Damn you!" someone cursed. Probably the unfortunate fellow who got cut. "No more playing around, kiddie!"

But the metallic smell of blood had already caused something primal in me to burst. An odd sense of coolness fell over my consciousness, blanketing it in painful clarity as I twisted out of the shadowy arms with calculated ease. It was a very strange feeling, because it seemed almost like my body was fighting back on its own. Slippery like an eel… Limber like a serpent… And yet, I knew I was no martial artist; the most physical that I ever got in terms of hobbies was soccer.

Crouch and dash.

"Get him, you fool!"

Left punch. Side slash.

"Why should I, you ain't got nothing on me!"

Back kick.

"You ingrate! I let you have fun with that girl the other day!"

Those men were hardly united, I realized even as I fought on an auto-pilot. It made sense, sort of. If this was indeed the same lawless world that Tite Kubo had shown in his works, then the people were probably more concerned for their own survival than watching out for each other… other than exceptions like Rukia's old crew.

But how did I end up in this twisted heaven? Was it… just my name?

Hitsuya was my original surname. Unremarkable as it was, the name probably just originated from a historical site close to Ise Bay. Still, it was close enough to someone's last name that my mother was inspired to christen me Toushirou. Only my father saved me from the embarrassment of receiving the same kanji as a comic character.

Still, I got teased at school enough for how that name sounded just like the colloquial equivalent for "amateur." But after seeing how broken my mother became after the divorce, I just did not have the heart to shot down her decision to change our surname to Hitsugaya. Good thing I started working in circles where few people have read BLEACH.

That did not mean I want to live in an old comic series that ended years ago.

"_Eightieth District_," the woman had said. So this was the most infamous district in the Rukongai. Was the real Hitsugaya ever in a place like this? I seemed to recall he grew up in a fairly serene neighborhood. But then, I was not him, was I?

Strange how my mind could run off on these tangents as my body continued to move of its volition.

I laughed hysterically at the ridiculousness of it all, coughing up the water that had gotten between my lips somewhere along the way. A remote part of my mind wondered if I was going to get sick from whatever micro-organisms happened to inhabit this slush, but the rest of me could hardly bring myself to care. I was in a fictional world, getting mobbed but somehow persisting.

"Chirirenge," my uncontrolled giggles must have scared those beasts, for some of them began to hesitate in their motion. Or maybe it was just my resistance yielding fruit. Were those dead bodies that I saw falling? I thought I was a good person… "Fallen lotus petals… How… fitting…"

Even as my hands darted about to bring down more of my attackers, I found that I was not escaping injuries myself. Several spots on my back and left calf stung where I was grazed. "_Non-lethal_," something or someone told me.

However, I was breathing very hard now. My body was not used to all this exertion and I was tiring at a rapid rate.

"_That is what you get for playing macho_," I sighed internally. Really, getting caught up in a fight was very unlike me. My superhero years should have ended ages ago. I could have fled from this senseless display of excess adrenaline a long time ago… I think. We were already out of that shifty marshland for at least ten minutes.

I could not risk the remainder of those men discovering my change of plans, though. My hands continued to parry their relentless punches, my body continued to evade their tricky stabs… but my feet began to edge surreptitiously towards a particular gap in their numbers.

"What's going on here?" a blur of white abruptly blocked my way, and I could not help but grit my teeth in frustration.

"Please, milord. Do not endanger yourself. This squabble among peasants is no concern of ours," other blurs of black appeared soon behind the first intruder. I recognized the design of their clothes when the new arrivals materialized clearly… It was _shihakushou_, the shinigami uniform. White _shitagi_ under black _kosode_-like overcoat, black _hakama_ tightened at the waist with a white _hakama-himo_. There was no mistaking it, but I just never thought I would actually see one of these things out of a cosplay convention.

"Endanger myself?" the white blur turned out to be an old, gaunt man dressed in much the same clothes except with a white _haori_. A… captain of the Gotei 13? "Are you questioning my abilities, Zeitou?"

"The difference is slight, but I believe this is western Rukongai and not our destination. You will have to answer for your negligence when we return." Ignoring his now red-faced subordinate (?), the captain focused his dark eyes on me. Was it just my imagination, or was he actually staring a little above than my face?

There was an odd pressure too… something close to what I felt on that plain of ice, but weaker. "Leave this child, dispatch the others."

He was obviously not addressing me, but I still felt indignant at being called a child. What was it with people judging other's age by height? "I'm not…"

I caught myself suddenly. The fight had absorbed most of my attention, but now that I could properly examine myself… I did notice my arm looked short. Short and chubby, like a child's. No wonder it had been so hard to reach some of my opponents' blind spots.

"Not?" the nameless captain prompted with an oddly gentle hint in his otherwise brittle voice. He towered over me, and I felt certain that my height must have shrunken significantly without my notice too.

There were cries of anguish and fright as my attackers scattered like what I had planned for myself just moments earlier. But all I could suddenly see was the white scarf around the man's neck… _Ginpaku kazahana no uzuginu_… Gods, was this guy…?

"So you know of me," he seemed to realize where I glued my eyes too. I forcibly tore my line of vision upwards, and I saw the man smiling faintly, "Or of my family. I should have… expected."

Expected? I was confused but I was not about to show it before a complete enemy, "I am sorry, sir. I was just drawn to the beauty of your… scarf."

Kuchiki, for I felt sure that was what someone from that family would appear in the 3-D plane, raised a grizzled brow. "If you insist. But you are very far from home… child."

This time, I could not hide my surprise. How did… No, he was just tricking me. I quickly composed myself again and retorted stiffly, "Thank you for your assistance, sir, but I must ask for my leave."

I should have known better than trying to outrun a shinigami who was probably very well-versed in s_hunpo_. Barely two steps away, a hand gripped my left shoulder firmly, "I am sorry, but I must escort you to somewhere safer. How does Jurin'an sound?"

xxx

I would not know, until years later, what was the significance of being seen with my shade of silvery white hair.

xxx

A/N:So many countries represented at FF! Amazing! I just wish people could review after reading though…  
I am unsure about the right pairing. Hinamori/Matsumoto/Rukia seems to be the staple in these stories, but Yachiru/Retsu/others will be more original (at the risk of turning this into a crack-fic). What is everyone's thought on this topic? If possible, I'd like to plan ahead so I can start seeding the right foreshadows.


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